Though
I grew up within sight of Channel
Islands National Park, I've only set foot on the islands
twice. I did, however, often take vacations with my family to the
Sierras and attended a summer camp there. During a summer in my
college years I spent a summer living just outside Yellowstone
and I've since traveled to a number of other national parks.

There's something else that by
my very nature I won't be able to fully understand: what it's like to be
non-white
in America. When it comes to our national
parks, I often felt as an adult like I was “catching up” with
friends when I visited, partaking in an experience that I thought was
normal, but turns out isn't so
common for people who don't look like me.

Not only are there issues of racial
disparity at national parks, but there are also numerous barriers to
park access for low income individuals of any
race or ethnicity, and that lack of access extends to state and
municipal parks as well. California,
for
example, lacks adequate access to state parks. “There are few
state parks in the areas that need them most,” wrote The
City Project in an Aug. 11 post to its City
ProjectBlog.

The Los Angeles area, for example, has 49 percent of the state's
population but only 5.5 acres of state parks per thousand residents,
compared to the Bay Area's 34.7 acres per thousand
residents. Working with a coalition of civic groups, the City Project
is urging the California Department of Parks and Recreation to “adopt
an equity plan to ensure that the benefits and burdens of state parks
and recreation are distributed fairly for all, including underserved
communities in park poor and income poor areas of California.”

Channel Islands National Park. Photo courtesy Bill Lascher.

Two
years ago, the University of Southern California's Center for
Sustainable Cities (Full disclosure: I took a course at the center
during my graduate studies) took one
well-publicized step to addressing L.A.'s
park poverty.

“Parks
are infused with all sorts of beliefs about the relationship
between the environment and society and between different
social groups,” wrote Jason Byrne, a USC student who studied at the
center, in a 2007 paper. “Because park spaces are not
ideologically neutral, parks can tell us much about the values that
underpin certain societies.”

Transitioning from discussions of
economic disparity and park access, evidence continues to mount about
racial disparities among park visitors and staff, as John Grossman
wrote
this summer for National Parks magazine.
There's even a growing body of scholarly
research [PDF] on the topic. Others have seen this disparity first
hand. After Audrey
and
Frank Peterman's kids finished college, the couple took a
cross-country trip through 40 states and numerous National Parks and
Forests and discovered “they saw less than a handful of Americans
of Hispanic, Asian, African or Native American heritage enjoying the
Great American outdoors, or working in them.” Since then, they've
become advocates for the park system and for access to them.

As eagerly as we might want to repair
environmental damages of the past and prevent it in the future, there's
clearly a great need to connect more of our population to its
surroundings. Doing so means providing access for a larger portion of
our population to the unfathomable wonder that still exists in our
backyards. Anyone who wants to make a convincing case about the need
to prevent environmental degradation will be well-served by working
to ensure more people have access to the world we want to protect.

Later this summer I'm planning to visit
Washington's Mount
Rainier National
Park. I'm curious who I'll meet when I'm there, and what I'll
learn.

Bill Lascher is a Portland, Oregon-based freelancer. He focuses
on the environment's intersection with science, business, culture and
policy.

He got the name for his Web site, Lascher at
Large, from the legal column his father penned for 20 years
before his death. Lascher is currently working on a project with his
grandmother to tell the story of her cousin, Melville Jacoby, a foreign
correspondent who died in the early days of World War II.

More from Recreation

Bill-I would point out that California's Prop. 21 provides not only the maintenance needed to preserve state parks, but unlimited free access to underserved populations. Many families, especially those in the lower economic brackets, cannot even afford to visit a state park or beach because the parking fees are so high. or, if they go once, they can't return again, because the fee is paid upon every visit. Prop. 21 allows all California passenger vehicles free day use of the parks for a one-time $18 registration fee (usually tax deductible, by the way). In just one and a half visits to the beach, this fee has paid for itself. The beauty is that now *everyone* can enjoy the state parks as often as they like, because the day use fee will be eliminated. This is great news for those of us looking for equal access to parks for all.